Diet Coke Zero Prime Plus

Mark is a Coke Fiend, like I am. That’s the kawaii-safe kind of Coke, mind you. My best friend from childhood and I had the same kind of Coke-Pepsi rivalry that Mark describes with his brother – in my case, I preferrred Coke not for the marketing but because Pepsi is just too sweet. There’s a bitter edge to Coke that gives it real flavor.

Truth be told though, I barely drink authentic Coke anymore. About three years ago I made the switch to Diet Coke, and subsequently lost ten pounds. The sugar was the culprit of course, but it wasn’t weight loss that motivated me – rather, it was that the sugar high and ensuing crash was swamping the desired physiological response of the caffeine. Simply put, Coke would put me to sleep rather than give me a boost. Switching to Diet made a big difference, and the associated drop in weight was just icing on the cake, so to speak.

Lately, I’ve been entranced with Diet Coke with Splenda. I love Splenda. It’s single-handedly allowed me to free myself of sugar’s utter dominance in most of my foods and coffee. It really is astounding just how much sugar you really are eating on a daily basis. I also like Coke Zero, which has an amusing “taste infringement” ad campaign (I’ve got a pic of a billboard to upload later). Mark refers to Passover Coke which is sweetened with pure cane sugar rather than corn syrup; that would probably be worth trying but is not really compatible with my sugarfree regime.

Intriguingly, I just noticed a few days ago that there’s a new Coke product on the shelves: Diet Coke Plus. It’s your standard Diet Coke but it’s got vitamin and mineral additives. Clearly a niche product but being the Coke connoisseur that I think I am, I’ll pick up a 12pack later this weekend. Must stay on top of things, after all.